In this Edition:Legal Reform: Fighting Disease is Better Than Suing
Over ItTort Du Jour: Turning a Line Drive into a Home RunTestimony: Tort System is Severely Broken

Fighting Disease is Better Than Suing Over It

The FDA may have severely undermined a group of personal injury
attorneys looking to sue the makers of a new class of wonder
drugs for schizophrenia. It turns out that the nation's premier
drug regulatory agency recently agreed with the makers that there
is no scientific proof the new and improved anti-psychotic drugs
actually cause diabetes. Instead, it said the jury is still out.

Then again, contrary scientific evidence
has never prevented lawsuits from being filed in the past. So,
it's not clear what effect the FDA opinion is going to have on
the plaintiffs' attorneys.

Notwithstanding the lawyers' reactions,
the FDA's assessment may at least have the benefit of allaying
the fears of patients who unfortunately began to question whether
the medication is worth the perceived risk.

Certainly every drug carries risks, and
everyone taking a new drug should consider those risks. But,
that consideration should be based on medical studies and discussions
with one's doctor - not on unsubstantiated claims in a personal
injury attorney's advertisement.

This is especially the case with an illness
such as schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia is a severe and debilitating
disease that causes hallucinations, disordered thinking and delusions,
making it difficult for patients to hold down a job or maintain
a relationship. As a result, those who suffer from the illness
are not its only victims. Family members suffer, too.

Fortunately, much of this suffering is
being eased by medications, and new drugs are almost a miracle
for many.

The new drugs - known to consumers under
the brand names Abilify, Clozaril, Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel
and Zyprexa - are widely believed to be far more effective, with
far fewer side effects, than the older generation of antipsychotics.
Their effect lasts longer and they have fewer side effects reducing
the quality of patients' daily lives.

However, some studies have shown that
a greater percentage of patients taking the new drugs have tested
positive for diabetes than those who took the older ones. And,
for that reason, lawyers have circled around the drug makers
like piranhas.

But the lawyers conveniently fail to
grasp an important point. Just because a drug is associated with
a particular illness does not prove that the drug actually causes
that illness.

Consider the fact that long before the
anti-psychotic drugs went to market, studies revealed that people
with schizophrenia were up to four times more likely to develop
diabetes than the general population. One logical medical explanation
is that weight gain is a risk factor linked to diabetes and that
drugs used to treat schizophrenia are known to cause weight gain
in some patients. In other words, it is unlikely that the drugs
themselves are causing diabetes, since the diabetes link existed
before the drugs were invented.

But the lack of evidence hasn't stopped
many trial attorneys from trolling for plaintiffs, perhaps scaring
them off their medication and possibly doing great harm to a
vulnerable community in the process. Legal hysteria has serious
implications across the entire health care industry.

As Dr. Mark McClellan, head of the FDA,
recently noted, our nation's litigious habits are having a negative
impact on drug makers by "increasingly threatening the development
of badly needed cures for physicians to use."

According to Dr. McClellan, "The
legal system is altering the practice of medicine and the development
of medicines themselves, in ways that harm patients."

Imagine if the manufacturers decided
they were sick of the lawsuits, and stopped making the drugs.
Literally millions of patients with schizophrenia would no longer
be able to function as well in society. That's why it is a good
thing that the FDA is seeking to set the record straight. The
agency took a prudent step, deciding to notify physicians about
the possible risk of diabetes associated with taking drugs to
treat schizophrenia.

But the FDA wisely noted that there is
an "increased background risk of diabetes" in schizophrenia
patients to begin with and an "increasing incidence of diabetes"
in the general population.

As a solution the FDA suggested that
doctors should pay greater "attention to the signs and symptoms
of diabetes" in these patients. Imagine that. Rather than
having to march into court, patients and doctors just have to
watch out for certain symptoms and, if they detect diabetes,
treat it.

Now that makes sense. It's no wonder
that fighting disease with the proper medical care is far better
than suing over it.

-by Amy Ridenour

Turning
a Line Drive into a Home Run

Writing in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,
Professor Ralph Reiland of Robert Morris University tells the
story of an Illinois high school pitcher, Danny Hannant, who
was hit in the head by a line drive. Rather than blame himself
for failing to catch the ball, Hannant sued the manufacturer
of the bat. Says Reiland, "Seeking in excess of $1 million,
Hannant's lawyer argued that the company should have put labels
on its Louisville Slugger bats warning that the product 'could
cause a baseball to be propelled with such velocity that when
hit directly towards a pitcher it does not allow the pitcher
sufficient reaction time to avoid being struck.'"

"Looking at all tort cases, Tillinghast-Towers
Perrin found that only 22% of tort costs compensated victims
for actual losses. What is frightening is that the link between
medical malpractice or corporate malfeasance and any scientific
evidence of wrongdoing or error is becoming increasingly tenuous.
For example, a new report by the American College of Obstetricians
and Gynecologists found that cerebral palsy almost never results
from problems in childbirth. Yet victims of this condition are
routinely awarded large sums as if the delivery doctor was solely
at fault. Similarly, billions of dollars were awarded to women
with silicon breast implants even though there is no scientific
evidence that they cause illness, according to the Institute
for Medicine. Judges and juries must learn that the money they
are awarding is not free money from the tooth fairy. The tort
system today is severely broken and in desperate need of reform.
Even the American Bar Association, whose members are enriched
by it, has come to agree."